Page 26 of Wicked Brutal

I smile. “I thought it was your turn.”

“It was.”

“So?”

He presses it into my palm. “Changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“You need more luck today.”

I close my hand around it. “That’s Tobias logic.”

“Tobias is wise.”

“Tobias tried to keep a frog in his backpack.”

“Wisdom has many forms.” I laugh, and he smiles, and then he reaches past me and unlocks the door.

And I watch him disappear. Not physically. The warmth just drains out of his expression, his shoulders settle, his mouth goes flat. Harrington. Just like that. It shouldn’t still amaze me. It does.

I tuck the penny into my blazer pocket and pick up my bag. Ryan opens the door and glances down the empty hall. “Clear.”

I step past him, and for half a second, when nobody in the world can see us, his fingers brush the inside of my wrist. Then they’re gone. I walk toward the stairs, and behind me Ryan waits exactly thirty seconds before he leaves, so that by the time we reach the first floor from different directions, we’re strangers again.

He passes me outside the history wing with Iz beside him. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t slow. Nothing. And this time — with ginger tea still warm in my stomach, the penny in my pocket, and tomorrow sitting like a live wire under my ribs — it hurts a little less. Not because Harrington is any kinder. Because upstairs, behind a locked door, Ryan is already working out how to tell four boys he’s going to be a father.

And tomorrow, for the first time since Valentine’s Day, our secret will belong to someone besides us.

By the time I shut the door to the old chemistry lab, Kaiden is already looking at me like he wants to crack my skull open and inspect the contents himself. Xander drops onto one of the stools, Danny takes the one beside him with his phone face-down on the table, and Iz comes in last with half a sandwich in one hand and a bag of chips tucked under his arm. He looks around at all of us, reads the temperature of the room in about a second, and grins.

“Okay. Either Harrington murdered somebody, or we’re planning to murder somebody, and I’d like it formally noted that I support both options and will bring snacks to either.”

“Lock it,” I tell him.

The smile drops off his face. He turns and locks the door without another word, and nobody asks why — and that’s the difference now. A year ago it would’ve taken ten minutes of everybody being a dick before we got anywhere. Now we’ve been through enough shit together that when one of us says lock the door, somebody locks the fucking door.

Kaiden crosses his arms. “Ally?”

“Yeah. It’s about Ally.”

Xander straightens on his stool. “What happened? Is she okay?”

“Nothing happened. Nobody’s hurt.” I watch four expressions shift and hold up a hand before they can spiral. “Roman doesn’t know anything, Tremblay doesn’t know anything, Ally’s safe.”

“For now,” Kaiden says.

“For now,” I agree.

Danny watches me and doesn’t say anything, which is exactly what I notice. He’s been quieter than the others since Becca’s accident — and not the old Danny quiet, either, not the detached thing where he’d sit in the middle of us observing everybody like we were subjects in one of his experiments. This quiet has weight to it. I put both hands flat on the edge of the lab table.

“I have to tell you something, and before I do, nobody says a fucking word outside this room. Not the girls, not your parents, nobody — not until Ally and I decide how we’re handling it.”

Iz lowers the sandwich. “Okay. You’ve got it. Whatever it is.”

“Ryan,” Kaiden says, low, a warning and a question both.

“Ally’s pregnant.”